Tag Archive | politics

Vote Proactively, Not Reactively.

Jan8

multicolored map of the United StatesWe now have a Republican controlled Congress and I want to know if that landslide victory for the Republicans is really a mandate for the Republican platform or was it just a matter of, “The Democrats had their chance and things are not going well for me so…” Are the majority of voters really in favor of repealing the Affordable Care Act? According to the Gallop poll published November 17, 2014:

Americans have never been overly positive toward the ACA, at best showing a roughly equal division between approval and disapproval early on in the law’s implementation.

According to that same poll, the current approval rating is 37%. So, why did we vote for him? He campaigned on this plan from the beginning.

OBAMA’S PLAN
National Health Insurance Exchange:
The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible…
Source: Campaign booklet, “Blueprint for Change”, p. 6-9 Feb 2, 2008

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he proceeded to do exactly what he said he was going to do. Around Election Day 2014, his approval /disapproval rating was 43% / 51%. As of January 7, 2015 it is 46% / 47%, only 1% difference between approval and disapproval, according to Gallop. Voters wanted a change in 2008. We got a change. In 2014, voters didn’t like that change and voted for a change again. Does it matter what the change is? It should.

I’m picking on the current president because he is the current president. My point is vote FOR a candidate. Know the issues. Know the state questions.

BE AN INFORMED VOTER.

Do a little research. Look into how a candidate has voted when in Congress or what their stance was as a governor. I know that it would be impossible to keep up with what all politicians do on a daily basis but there are websites that do that for you and you can take some time out every once in a while to look up your legislators at the local and national level. When primaries and national elections come around, research the contenders.

Here are a couple of sites that I have found helpful.

On The Issues This site also has the booklets that candidates write about their platforms.

Ballotpedia.

Both of these sites have a map where you can click on your state and find out about local issues.

Also, play the devil’s advocate with yourself. Try to understand the other side or try to understand issues that are not currently affecting you personally. Don’t be one of those people that thinks, I don’t have that problem so it’s not a problem.

Be a part of an informed and civil electorate.

What have we to do with judging outsiders?

May10

Why do we as Christians feel as though non-believers should behave as we do? Non-Christians have no reason to adhere to the moral laws of the Judeo-Christian Bible and trying to make them do so is not only counterproductive, it is putting things in the wrong order.

Matthew 28:19-20 tells us to go and make disciples, baptize them, THEN teach them to observe all that He taught. The first step is to make them disciples.  If we could outlaw homosexuality, promiscuity, and drunkenness, if we could manage to enforce those laws, if we could eradicate all immoral, criminal, and addictive behaviors, if everyone went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night, would we have made them Christians?

No.

Jesus had scathing comments to those who appeared clean and beautiful on the outside but were “whitewashed tombs” filled with death and decay. Creating a whitewashed environment does not accomplish our goal. What we would accomplish is making ourselves comfortable. We would no longer have to be confronted with the different. I am afraid that being comfortable is not what Jesus had in mind for us. Jesus befriended the different, those that made the religious establishment of the day cringe. Now we have set ourselves up as the religious establishment and are  doing the exact same things. We have become modern day Pharisees, glued to the letter of the law while ignoring the the main point. We have become Caiaphas, more interested in maintaining power and tradition than in the lives and souls of our neighbors.

We are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves. Who are our neighbors? They are the group of rowdy young college kids that rented the house down the street and block the street with cars on Friday and Saturday nights for their parties. They are the elderly that can’t get out of the house and have to have food delivered. No one visits them. They are the lesbian couple that just moved in next door that you try very hard to ignore.

“..Even as I have loved you,” Jesus said. He died for us. I think that is what God is telling us to do, to love our neighbors so much that we would die for them if necessary. Our love should be that blinding. It should be attractive, not repelling. We are God’s representatives on earth. When people see us, do they say, “I want what that person has,” or do they say, “I want no part of that!”?

The point of this ramble is that I think we are making a serious mistake when we use politics to coerce non-believers into a system that does not belong to them, AND it is not constitutional.  What the religious wing of conservative politics is doing is wrong, both morally and constitutionally and I think the fight will lead to the end of our religious freedom.

http://www.reclinercommentaries.com/2013/03/a-compromise-on-gay-marriage.html

His name is Dennis Ingolfsland. I had never heard of him before I found this but his logic is sound. I don’t agree with the idea that it is a compromise. I just believe it is the right thing to do and the consequences he predicts are probable.

For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Paul in First Corinthians 5:12-13

Beating everyone into submission by law builds barriers between them and God.

If any non-believers are reading this, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience is constitutional. Do not force a doctor to perform an abortion if she/he feels it is wrong. Do not force the Catholic Church to pay for things they have been against for centuries. They did not come up with this idea just to spite women of 21st century America. God gives you the right to accept or reject Him so I do too. I am giving you the freedom to be right or wrong. Do the same for me.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me but I do hope people will start thinking in a different paradigm. I want to hear what you think, respectfully of course. Please leave a comment.

Apr25

banner image by Sean Lynn

 

Our nation is a fractured house. Society divides us in every way imaginable, male vs. female, religious vs. atheists, religions against each other, gay vs. straight, republican vs. democrat, and there are all of those who don’t fit into the one or the other category. Yes, we are different and we live in a country that guarantees that freedom to be different. In all our differences, let’s have a civil conversation.